A Teacher Blogs

On the eve of the 2015 celebration of the International Day of Pink , many -- myself included -- were startled to find that Laureen Harper had been named an ambassador of the event. Ms Harper's letter of support appeared on the front page of the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD) , formerly known as Jer's Vision for its founder Jeremy Dias . Sparks flew briefly, and we went on about our business. CBC reported on both the controversy and the successes of the day: LGBT activists boycott #DayOfPink over Laureen Harper's involvement . Well, sort of. But not really. There were no disruptions of the event, per se. Ariel Troster posted an essay on Storify which elucidated the concerns of many: Why I won't be wearing pink tomorrow: How the #DayofPink just sold out trans youth . While the Harper Conservatives have been trying to paint themselves as gay-friendly, the party is stacked with vicious homophobes who said absolutely atrocious things during...

Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario You know The International Day of Pink -- celebrated on the second Wednesday of April, since 2007 -- has become successful when you sit down to read the articles condemning it. And take a look at the people writing them. And the sources they cite. This year's celebration was no exception. All the usual suspects were out, encouraging parents to keep their kids at home from school and free of the statist exercise of politically correct indoctrination. Or, as I call it, facetiously, the great queering of Ontario's school children . There was this piece in LifeSiteNews:  ‘Day of Pink’ teaches school kids to accept homosexuality, critic warns The title is not entirely wrong, just incomplete. The official Day of Pink website , which operates under  The Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity (CCGSD) , formerly known as Jer's Vision , defines its mission as follows:  Welcome! The Day of Pink is t...

This is my third year organizing, or helping to organize, an event for International Day of Pink  at school. I always end up having a really great time, and my co-workers, students and parents seem to like it also. Our efforts this year were a little more low-key because we have other projects that we're working on through our GSA, as well other student groups and committees.  Kids, parents and staff were invited to show up in pink and talk about the things we can do to make our school a safer and more caring place to be. There's always some drama floating around on social media or the blogosphere about how this is really some covert exercise by #BigGay or the #Gaystapo to covertly indoctrinate children into the "gay lifestyle" by "normalizing homosexuality."   This cracks me up for a couple reasons: It's really hard to be covert when you're dressed in pink. To normalize something, it would first have to be abnormal. Besides which, when ...